… and welcoming the endless rainstorms that characterize this part of the year. even now, it storms as i sit here typing and sipping a cup of hot milo (not for me the hot chocolate of the west!); the sounds of rumbling thunder and gushing rain comforting because inside, we are all a little wild.

post-elections, i walked past a hair removal salon and witnessed the entire store-front plastered with posters proclaiming ‘no more bush! or slogans to that effect. they probably thought it was funny. well, for what it’s worth, it certainly caught my eye.

the streets of orchard are colored with the traditional christmas lights that make the charts for popular small talk conversation topics this time of the year. it’s supposed to be a sweet christmas this year - the double entendre not lost on anyone, and how cheesy! we all say even as we admire the actually-pretty and not-so-in-your-face lights.

but i love the trees the most; the malls with giant trees get my vote every time. growing up, i have never had a christmas tree in the house, but i think i would like to get one when and if i ever get my own place. just so i can shop for trinkets to place on the tree – trinkets that i can pull out every year and say it always goes there! – and just so i can sit around and watch the lights twinkling as i listen to the carpenters sing merry christmas, just for me.

a friend and i used to wonder about the human fascination with lights. why do we find lights so beautiful even when they are simply random, like city-lights viewed from a great distance? so much more beautiful, in fact, than in the day, when arguably, everything is simply bathed in one, singular, bright light. i still wonder.

i was woken up at half-past three in the morning by the gentle whooshing of rain outside. i left my windows wide open, snuggling into the blankets as the wind swung the curtains this way and that.

it is a lovely feeling to be awake at that time of the night (when you are not dead tired, that is). to be conscious as the world sleeps; to feel safe and cocooned in the midst of a storm; to let your mind wander far and wide as you take your time to fall back into unconsciousness, rocked to sleep by a cool tropical storm.

after many months of sleepless nights spent rushing through senseless translations, i am enjoying this rare lull in work pace (although i might not be saying the same if it goes on. after all, one has to eat to enjoy anything at all). i mean to savour this time, even as i try to silence the voices that play on loop in my brain night and day, day and night – when will i know about the scholarship?

but there are many things to be done in the meantime; i cannot allow myself to fret over things i cannot control. news to catch up on, (text)books to dig out and fresh ideas to give birth to, music to learn and love, bridesmaid duties, movies, birthdays, blogs… a whole country to get myself re-acquainted with – to try and understand, all over again, the physical and social fabric that makes singapore, for it is the understanding of self that feeds the understanding of others.

yes, it should be an exciting few months ahead.